Charter authorizers and student achievement?

Does the charter school authorizer have an impact on student achievement? This is a key question in charter policy and law. Many theories and suggestions for improving education, including charter schools, are difficult to implement. However, if the type of authorizer has an effect on student achievement within the charter school, lawmakers could use this information to adapt charter laws to improve charter schools in a fairly simple way.

The Center on Reinventing Public Education has released a new paper, Charter School Authorizers and Student Achievement: A Case Study of Ohio, co-authored by Ron Zimmer (along with Brian Gill and Kaitlin Obenauf) who has previously conducted research for the Choice Center. This research examines whether student achievement levels in charter schools vary by authorizer type. Ohio is a great site for this research because its charter law allows for multiple authorizers, including local districts, universities, and nonprofit organizations. The authors found variation of student achievement among types of authorizers. For more information about the specific findings, check out the paper!

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The NCSC is funded by a 5 year, $13.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Its lead institution is Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The center is housed on the campus of Peabody College, one of the nation's top graduate schools of education.